Ingeborg-Psalter

Graz: Akademische Druck- u. Verlagsanstalt, 1985. Hardcover. Fine. Fine condition two volumes in slipcase. Complete color facsimile edition of the 394 pages (197 folios) in original size (304 x 204 mm). The manuscript contains 51 full page miniatures with rich gold ornaments and numerous splendid initial letters. The binding is an all leather binding, with all pages hand cut according to the original. The commentary volume has a detailed scholarly commentary. Limited and numbered edition, limited to 500 copies, with each volume numbered by hand (this is volume 194). The codex dates from about 1200, Northern France. Undeniably the greatest painting to employ ridged drapery is in the Psalter (Chantilly, Musee Conde Ms. 1695; ills. 190-193) made for Queen Ingeborg of France. The standard of the manuscripts illumination is such as can only be described by epithets of superlatives. Its full page miniatures are by two illuminators, one working in an older tradition than the other, but throughout there is a stylistic development which ignores this division and is presumably due to the common enterprise. The earlier miniatures, by the older master, have flatter Byzantinesque folds akin to those in Salzburg illumination, but these soon sharpen into ridges and troughs and the newer technique dominates the work of the younger master being developed to its furthest extent in his miniature of Pentecost. In all the Ingeborg miniatures faces are particularly plastic and rounded, but always with a certain pathos or strain in their expressions; they never exhibit the calm observable in the Westminster Psalter. Only the younger master, however, manages to give a convincing plasticity to covered bodies. As might be expected of a book of this importance, much discussion has raged about the date and provenance of the Ingeborg Psalter. The most recent definitive suggestion is circa 1195 in north-eastern France, possibly in the diocese of Noyon; but the debate continues.